Tourism. Trends. Tactics. Technology.

February 05, 2019

As the Caution Lights Flash More Incessantly

Among the top 14 international long-haul destinations around the world, only one (Turkey) performed worse than the U.S. from 2015-2017. Tourism Economics President Adam Sacks avoided the over-used phrase "perfect storm" as he coined an even better one: "a triad of factors" impacting America's lackluster performance.

"The global economy is slowing, most currencies have weakened against the dollar and U.S. policy and rhetoric have damaged sentiment. We see the latter two to be the prevailing factors over the past two years," he added. And, digging deeper into the country-by-country results really highlights how negative perceptions toward the U.S. are evident in significant travel declines from the Middle East, China and Germany. Indeed, growth in inbound travel from China completely stalled in 2018, after averaging an annual growth rate of over 20% for the past decade.